Emotions In The Moment: Confused!

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So, first off, it's 4am here, so I may not be as eloquent with my wording as I'd like. Excuse any grammatical errors, and I'll try and make as much sense as possible.

Now, the problem I've come across is a little hard to explain, because I don't know if it's 'normal', or the way I'm looking at it, or an Aspie thing. Basically, so far as I can tell, my emotions all seem to come in bursts of a few minutes, while the emotion causing event is going on; sort of like an adrenaline rush I guess, but of the particular emotion instead of adrenaline. For example, I've just finished the best portrait I've ever drawn. I stood back and looked at it, and a rush of excitement and happiness went through me which lasted a little while. I still get an echo of it now and then when I look at it, but other than that I don't think there's a lasting sense of, well, anything really. On the other end if the scale, if I get annoyed, my anger comes in a short, sharp burst and everyone around me knows it, then just as suddenly it's gone, usually leaving me a bit embarrassed and apologetic, and everyone else a bit wary. I think this sort of helps to explain my lack of motivation too. I mean, I can sit and think 'right, this needs to be done, then I can do this, then I get my reward and I can be happy', and that's all well and good. But the emotional motivation, the thought of that happiness (or sense of achievement at finishing a task I suppose), isn't enough; there's no actual emotion to go with it.

There are other things that last a longer time, like anxiety, but I wouldn't call that an emotion, I'd say it's more of a reaction, in this case an instinct gone a bit wrong. I mean, I know that's kind of what emotions are, but they're a bit different so far as I can tell. I think one of my main difficulties is that it's hard to tell what to call an emotion and what isn't. I've learned to identify these bursts as real emotions, and most of the time I just live by thought alone, trying to make decisions without the benefit of emotional choices. It's all so confusing to think of though! Maybe I'm wrong, and the emotions are there but I haven't put a name to them? Or maybe I'm right? Or maybe it's something I haven't thought of? I'm really confused here...

I don't want to come off as unemotional, because I do feel emotion a lot, and empathy with others, but like I say it's in these bursts, and never seems to hang around in the background. Is that just how it always works, or what? Problem is, I don't know how anyone else's mind works, I only live in mine

Ideas?

I can relate to the way you feel emotions. I usually know how I am feeling based on the thought patterns. I don't actually feel the emotion unless it is really strong.

As you say, it's impossible to REALLY know how anybody else feels, but I suspect it really does work like that for most people. The baseline emotional state is a kind of neutral, and good or bad events cause emotions that last for a little while then fade in proportion to how strong they were. I experience emotion in this way, but it doesn't interfere with my motivation.

What you share makes sense to me. It is very difficult to describe, but you did it well.
For me, I usually don't feel the emotions of things at the time. I will try to feel them so I can interact with others, but there is usually nothing there outside the mental thoughts about the topic. But at night I process through the day and end up with sudden intense (sometimes physically agonizing) emotions that overwhelm me and the thought about the actual event feels like a string that led me to that state.

If I do feel the emotion at the time of an event, that usually warns me that when I allow myself to fully follow that string and go behind the closed door the emotions are going to be too intense and difficult. Ugg. I hate feeling things with that level of intensity. It makes every cell in my body feel as though it was burning with acid from the inside out.

Yes! As I say, I posted at 4am because that's when the thought struck me, because I was doing exactly that. I was processing the day's events and this post is what I came up with.

I think it might be a sort of exaggeration of 'normal', where neutral is the base state for everyone, but our emotions are felt either very strongly, or just shut out until they can be processed better later. This fits with my theory of us having MORE emotions than we can handle, and not less emotion like neurotypicals seem to think of us. We're just not great at coping with the intense bursts. Sort of like hypersensitivity, but to emotion instead of normal sensory input.